Lack of windows keeps activity center from opening

Published: Thursday, January 10, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, January 9, 2013 at 10:44 p.m.

NORTHPORT | The new 60,000-square foot activity center at Faucett Brothers Park was supposed to open in October, but three months later the center has yet to be completed.

According to the Tuscaloosa County Park and Recreation Authority, work is still being done on the $8.4 million building, now slated to open March 1. The delay is partly due to the non-arrival of 680 custom, double-paned windows that are being manufactured specifically for the building. Their shipment has not arrived from the manufacturer.

“We don't know when they will be in,” said Becky Booker, spokesperson for PARA. “We've talked to the company in Georgia on numerous occasions.”

The building has been closed in with plywood so that other work, including completing the interior of the building, could be finished, despite the lack of windows. The pools are filled, the rock climbing wall is finished and treadmills are in place, Booker said. Furnishings are being delivered, it's just that the building itself cannot be finished until custom windows arrive, she said.

On Wednesday, the building's status came up at the Tuscaloosa County Commission. Commissioners asked why the center was not open.

The county has funded the construction, including an additional

$1 million for furnishings, which it approved in August, expecting that the center would be open last fall.

“I don't know what's the delay,” said Tuscaloosa County Chairman Hardy McCollum, who added that it had something to do with the building's windows.

Once the 60,000-square-foot activity center is completed, it will be the largest such center the county has built. It will be 12,000 square feet larger than the Bobby Miller Activity Center in Taylorville and will be just outside Northport at Faucett Brothers Park, near the intersection of Alabama Highway 171 and Rose Boulevard.

It will be the sixth activity center built by the Tuscaloosa County Park and Recreation Authority.

“It's going to be gorgeous, designed around nature,” Booker said of the center. “The views will be fabulous.”

The center will have a large two-level patio area and two pools, including a therapeutic pool and a lap pool. One wall of the lap pool opens onto one of the patio areas, so that people using the pool can also lounge outside.

The center will include an indoor walking track, exercise and aerobics room and a full-size basketball court.

Plans for the center also included a room that will be a branch of the Tuscaloosa County Library, but until funding can be found and until the library decides to expand, that space will remain unoccupied.

The project was originally proposed in 2009, but was delayed while the County Commission debated the cost and questioned why Northport was not contributing more money toward the project.

By the time the project was approved in December 2010, about a year after it was first proposed, Northport had agreed to pay for about $500,000 in water and sewer infrastructure for the center. Northport contributed $200,000 in 2012 for the furnishings and increased its annual funding to PARA from $75,000 to $125,000 in 2013.

Based on 2010 estimates, it will cost about $600,000 a year to operate the activity center, which will generate about $225,000 a year in fees. Local governments would need to make up $375,000 to $400,000 yearly operating deficit.